The Vinyl Detective by Andrew Cartmel
The Vinyl Detective isn’t actually a real detective. He’s just a young, single Londoner whose name is never revealed. A jazz fanatic, he makes his living digging through the crates at record fairs and in charity shops looking for rare vinyl being sold cheap. When…
The Scrivener by Robin Blake
Having worked as a teacher for many years, Robin Blake became a full-time writer in 1986, publishing works of fiction and non-fiction. Most notably, he is an art historian who has written about Anthony Van Dyck and George Stubbs. However, in the 1990s, Blake made…
A Tapping at My Door by David Jackson audiobook
Narrated by Jonathan Keeble — The early chapters of this police procedural are tremendously intriguing. A woman copper in Liverpool is murdered in her back garden, with a dead raven splayed over her face. Only when the crime scene investigators remove the bird do they…
Death Do Us Part by Steven Dunne
Detective Inspector Damen Brook of Derby CID is back, with a new case and a new set of troubles. An old couple are found dead in their house, in a quiet Derby suburb. Holding hands, both are smartly dressed, their favourite piece of music playing…
Angel by Anita Waller
A good measure of how much a book affects you is how much of it stays with you months, or years, later. Anita Waller’s debut Beautiful, which I reviewed here for New Talent November last year, is full of the kind of scenes that you…
Die of Shame by Mark Billingham
Mark Billingham is celebrated for his long-running police procedural series featuring the London detective Tom Thorne. Like all good writers, however, he has shown he can produce standalones too, such as Rush of Blood, which came out in 2012. Die of Shame is still set…
Little Sister by David Hewson
This third police procedural in Hewson’s Netherlands series again features Amsterdam police brigadier Pieter Vos and his misfit Frieslander colleague, Laura Bakker. The story centres on the plight of Mia and Kim Timmers, orphaned twins – originally from a set of triplets – who have…